Artist: Heaven Shall Burn
Label: Century Media
Release: 2009
Runtime: 59:11
Rating: 4/5
Heaven Shall Burn are becoming an ever more influential name in the European metalcore wave. The band has carved out a distinct direction that somehow draws on the foundations of melodic death metal, and their latest album “Iconoclast pt I.” (RockLine review HERE) confirmed that they’ve somehow vaulted themselves to the creative peak of their career. Heaven Shall Burn are famous for intense, convincing live shows. The idea of putting out a live album came at just the right moment, since “Iconoclasp pt. I” was received brilliantly by critics and music fans alike, so in the run-up to the tour supporting that album, interest in Heaven Shall Burn shot up. That’s exactly what happened in Vienna, where the band recorded a show at the Gasometer hall, which is also featured on the disc, and the place was jam-packed with fans who came to cross their fingers for their heroes.
The band built the set mostly from the last three studio records, with the spotlight on promoting “Iconoclast pt. I (The Final Restistance)” – 5 tracks in total, including the “folk-hero” Black Fear – Edge Of Sanity cover.
Let me also mention that this live document, aptly titled “Iconoclast pt II. Bilderstorm (The Visual Resistance)”, is also available as a double live DVD, with a special edition that includes this single audio disc, which is now lying on my surgical table of analytical dissection. But for true fans of the band, you can’t really have one without the other. This single live disc, stitched together from two concert recordings, the aforementioned Vienna one (indoor) and one from the SummerBreeze festival in Germany (open air), presents the band as a well-oiled, well-greased machine that, with its eruptive riff-fueled speed on stage, never misses its target.
The riff embrace is proven-thick and works like a superior wrapping around the rhythmic skeleton, driven by the relentless rolling gears of the double bass drum pedals. On top of it all sits the screeching vocal, typical “core” stock, and Heaven Shall Burn show up exactly the way every fan of the band, and of the melodic European “metal-core” genre, wants them. With vocals like these, you can only wonder how much help the singer gets from the “mixing desk” and how much of it is actual “original brutal” screaming.
I’d like to point out that true Heaven Shall Burn fans will have to buy both. The CD and the double DVD. Your best bet is to get hold of the special packaging that offers the double DVD plus the audio disc on top. The setlists aren’t entirely identical on the two formats, which is a typical sly old-school trick the corporations use to pull coins out of people’s pockets. The CD has the track Partisan, which isn’t in the setlist on the double DVD, though that track was also released as a “single” from this very document, i.e. the CD “Bildestorm – The Visual Resistance: Iconoclast pt II.”, and it’s the “indoor” version from the Vienna recording.
The mix and mastering, handled by Tue Madsen, lift the recording from the Gasometer hall (Vienna) in particular up a few notches. He managed to preserve incredible liveliness, stress the aggression, and bring out the band’s tightness, high level of cohesion and destructive power. On top of that, Madsen kept the individual elements remarkably balanced and colorfully highlighted their basic purpose (function). Poisonous vocal up front, a massive curtain of riffs carrying the vocal equally from left and right, and in the background the never-drying-up machine guns of the double bass drum pedals. That killer “oomph” every real live recording needs.
So for everyone who gets fired up by the melodic side, which Heaven Shall Burn achieve with hypnotic passages of double triplet “fast-trembling” harmonies, crossed with the brutal neighing of the rhythm engine and extreme vocals, and especially for everyone who caught the band on the tour this document comes from, it’s a must! Interesting, of course, for all fans of modern-day In Flames too.
Lineup
Marcus Bischoff – vocals
Maik Wechert – guitar
Alexander Deitz – guitar
Eric Bischoff – bass guitar
Matthias Voigt – drums
Production
Tue Madsen
Tracklist
1. Endzeit (6:10)
2. Counterweight (4:25)
3. Profane Believers (3:42)
4. Behind A Wall Of Silence(3:41)
5. The Seventh Cross (4:15)
6. Partisan (2:57)
7. To Inherit The Guilt (2:55)
8. If This Is A Man (2:35)
9. Black Tears (4:13)
10. The Weapon They Fear (3:39)
11. Voice Of The Voiceless (4:00)
12. Like A Thousand Suns (3:46)
13. Murderers Of All Murderers (3:36)
14. The Only Truth (4:23)
15. Forlorn Skies (4:49)
Tracks 1-9 – live in Vienna
Tracks 10-15 – live at Summerbreeze festival
